Another end of the month, another Clinton email dump. Below via foia.state.gov:

The Department is conducting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) review of all emails provided by former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton. Starting in June 2015, a new set of emails from this collection will be released on this site at the end of each month. These monthly releases will continue until the entire collection of records is reviewed for public release, and all releasable records will be available on this site.

In May 2015, the Department released a set of 296 of these documents which previously had been provided in February 2015 to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. These and additional emails released in coming months from this collection will be available here.

On December 1, 2008, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for Secretary of State. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. The emails we have looked at so far from this latest dump are from the start of her tenure with routine staffing issues, folks looking for jobs,

I have not seen or heard of Tigers actually yanking anybody’s clearance due to an offending blog. I am aware of private sessions of discouragements, issues with onward assignments, and of course, threats of various colors and stripes among directed at FS bloggers. And as far as I know, they have not technically kicked out anyone who blogs either — unless you call the “push” to retirement a payback kick.

Well, State did yank Peter Van Buren‘s clearance afterwards, but it was for more than just a blog. Occasionally, I get a request to cite a case where identified individuals got into real trouble due to blogging in the Foreign Service. Except for a small number of cases (PVB, ADA and MLC), I’ve refrained from writing about the blog troubles out of concern that writing about them makes it worse for the individual bloggers. In … Read on!

According to a job announcement posted earlier this year, there are Foreign Service Regional Medical Officers/Psychiatrists assigned at the following locations:

Accra

Amman

Athens

Bangkok

Beijing

Bogota

Cairo

Dakar

Frankfurt

Jakarta

Lima

London

Manama

Mexico City

Moscow

Nairobi

New Delhi

Pretoria

Tokyo

Vienna

District of Columbia

RMO/Ps also serve on temporary duty in high threat locations (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen etc.) and in post-disaster environments (e.g., post-earthquake Haiti, etc). The U.S. embassies in Libya and Yemen are currently on suspended operations, and temporarily located in Tunisia and Saudi Arabia respectively.

The latest available data on FS skills group published via afsa.org in 2013 indicates that the State Department has 24 psychiatrists and 4 mental health specialists. There are 275 overseas posts. As of 2014, there are 13,801 employees (FSOs – 8,042; Specialist – 5,759) and 11,701 adult family members overseas according to an April 2015 FLO data; a total FS population overseas of 25,202. If we include the Civil Service employees and the locally employed staff, the State Department has a total workforce of 71,782. Let’s try and do the math.

The 2015 Crime and Safety Report from the Regional Security Office released in May this year, notes that crime in El Salvador can run the gamut from credit card skimming to homicide and is unpredictable, gang-centric, and characterized by violence directed against both known victims and targets of opportunity. The effect and threat of violent crime in the capital city of San Salvador, including the neighborhoods in which many U.S. citizens live and work, leads to greater isolation and the curtailment of recreational opportunities. Crimes of every type routinely occur. U.S. citizens are advised to avoid travel into the downtown area of San Salvador “unless absolutely necessary” and travel outside the cities and to Guatemala or Honduras should only be done during daylight hours and with multiple vehicle convoys for safety. Excerpt:

The threat from transnational criminal organizations is prevalent throughout Central America. There is some evidence that the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas may have infiltrated El Salvador, although only in extremely low numbers. El Salvador has hundreds of gang “cliques,” with more than 20,000 members. Violent, well-armed, U.S.-style street gang growth continues, with the 18th Street (Barrio 18) and MS-13 (“Mara Salvatrucha”) gangs being … Read on!

On July 29th, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) cleared 11 ambassador nominees for the State Department, and two nominees for USAID, including Gayle Smith, nominated as Rajiv Shah’s successor as USAID administrator. It also cleared 1 Foreign Service list with 181 names.

Sheila Gwaltney, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kyrgyz Republic.

Perry L. Holloway, of South Carolina, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.

Kathleen Ann Doherty, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Cyprus.

Hans G. Klemm, of Michigan, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Romania.

James Desmond Melville, Jr., of New Jersey, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to … Read on!

On March 16, WaPo reported that the same employee was arrested in the District and charged with taking videos of women through the windows of their homes. According to the same report, Daniel Rosen’s security clearance had been revoked. Before it was taken down, he indicated on his LinkedIn profile that he was the Director of Counterterrorism Plans, Programs and Policy at the State Department for over six years. As of February 25, the State Department telephone directly lists the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s Director for the Office of Programs and Policy located at 2509 as “vacant.”

Daniel Rosen, 45, pleaded guilty to 11 charges of stalking and voyeurism on Wednesday in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for incidents that happened between 2012 and 2014. According to law enforcement, he used his cell phone to record women in various stages of undress by aiming his cellular phone through their apartment windows in the areas … Read on!

]]>http://diplopundit.net/2015/07/30/daniel-rosen-state-dept-official-pleads-guilty-to-stalking-and-voyeurism-charges/feed/2domanisperoYou’ve Seen the Boooooks, Now Get Ready For the Benghazi Movies!http://diplopundit.net/2015/07/29/youve-seen-the-boooooks-now-get-ready-for-the-benghazi-movies/
http://diplopundit.net/2015/07/29/youve-seen-the-boooooks-now-get-ready-for-the-benghazi-movies/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 07:29:15 +0000http://diplopundit.net/?p=27034Posted: 3:24 am EDT

We’ve stopped counting the number of Benghazi reports coming out of Congress a long time ago just as we’ve stopped counting the number of Benghazi books populating Amazon, B&N, Ebay, and even Walmart. But now comes the movies. We’re starting the counting game again. Maybe we’ll hire junior to do the reviews.

In September 2013, Deadlinereported that Thunder Road had acquired The Embassy House to use as the basis for a feature movie. Oh, wait, that’s the book that was withdrawn by the publisher following the CBS News-Lara Logan blowup. But who knows? Maybe there will still be a movie called Not the Embassy House, because Benghazi, after all, was not an embassy. We have no intention of reading the book, but a retired FSO who wrote about it here has something shareable:

In an explanatory note, the author wrote that he used the terms “Embassy,” “Consulate” and “Diplomatic Mission” – replete with capital letters – interchangeably throughout. Moreover, wrote the author, “My understanding is that when the ambassador visits, it becomes the embassy.” Say what?

On July 27, Secretary Kerry announced the appointment of career diplomat Michael Ratney as the new U.S. Special Envoy for Syria.

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Ratney as the new U.S. Special Envoy for Syria. I have come to know Michael well in his most recent role as U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, and am impressed by his keen intellect, deep knowledge of the region, and policy judgment.

Michael is a Senior Foreign Service officer who is fluent in Arabic and whose distinguished career has spanned Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, and beyond. I am confident he will continue the important work led by his predecessor, Daniel Rubinstein, to shape our response to the complex and devastating conflict in Syria.

Michael’s leadership and counsel will be critical as we confront the significant challenges posed by more than four years of suffering, bloodshed, and destruction in Syria. We remain committed to reaching a negotiated political transition away from Bashar al-Assad, working to counter the shared threat of terrorism, supporting the moderate opposition, and addressing the humanitarian disaster and its impact on Syria’s neighbors.

On July 22, The Hill reported that the Gowdy committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks announced it has called on one of Secretary of State John Kerry’s top aides to appear this week. The panel apparently wanted Jon Finer, Kerry’s chief of staff, to appear on July 29th to discuss the State Department’s compliance with the panel’s investigation.

Late on July 27, The Hill reported that the State Department has agreed to release 5,000 pages of documents to the House Select Committee on Benghazi tomorrow, July 28. This document release temporarily cancels Mr. Finer’s appearance before the panel but chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has not ruled out any future appearance.

The new document dump comes after a standoff between the State Department and the House panel, which had previously ordered a top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry to testify on Wednesday.

After the department committed to releasing the 5,000 new pages to the committee, the hearing with that aide — Kerry’s chief of staff, Jon Finer — will be postponed until after Kerry has completed a marathon string of briefings and hearings to sell the international nuclear deal with Iran.
[…]
“If the … Read on!

According to the Foreign Affairs Manual, the Act of August 26, 1950 (64 Stat. 476), codified at 5 U.S.C. 7532, “confers upon the Secretary of State the authority, in the Secretary’s absolute discretion, to suspend without pay any civilian officer or employee of the Department (including the Foreign Service of the United States) when deemed necessary in the interest of the national security (see 12 FAM 235.2).”